How iPhone Hackers Got Their Hands on the New iOS Months Before Its Release

Security researchers and hackers have had access to a leaked early version of iOS 14, the iPhone's next operating system, since at least February, Motherboard reported Friday. From the report: That's almost eight months before the expected official release of iOS 14, given that Apple usually publishes the new iOS in September along with the announcement of new phones. Sometimes, screenshots and descriptions of new features leak before the official reveal. This time, however, an entire version of the operating system has leaked and is being widely circulated among hackers and security researchers. Motherboard has not been able to independently verify exactly how it leaked, but five sources in the jailbreaking community familiar with the leak told us they think that someone obtained a development iPhone 11 running a version of iOS 14 dated December 2019, which was made to be used only by Apple developers. According to those sources, someone purchased it from vendors in China for thousands of dollars, and then extracted the iOS 14 internal build and distributed it in the iPhone jailbreaking and hacking community.

So hackers paid $99 for Dev Prog membership

[drnb]

So hackers paid $99 for membership in the Apple Developer Program and downloaded the developer betas just like thousands of other 3rd party developers.

Re:

[garote]

You don't understaaaand, maaan! The bits are TEN TIMES COOLER when they're from the black market, even if they're identical!

apple should create decoys

[goombah99]

Apple should issue dev builds with deliberate flaws that don't interferre with development but will send hackers down a rabbit hole of documenting and selling hacks that won't work upon release. keep em busy and give the hackers a bad rep to their clients

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

information is very mobile

[hdyoung]

It's almost like it's impossible to keep a secret once it's in the hands of more than about a dozen people. Our government can't do it. Apple can't do it. Nobody can do it.


This is why I know that our government isn't hiding aliens. My grandfather worked for the government as an engineer during WW2 and after. He worked on some really secret stuff. I asked him about aliens in the government. His answer was this: no way, cause we can't even keep our nuclear secrets out of the hands of our worst enemies. The number of people required to hide a large conspiracy guarantees that the conspiracy will come to light. It's simply human nature.